I’ll be attending the World Fantasy Convention later this week. I’ll be arriving Thursday evening and departing early Monday morning.
Here’s my schedule:
Friday, 8-11:30PM (Regency Ballroom)
AUTOGRAPH RECEPTION
Saturday, 4-4:30pm (Knox Room)
READING
For my reading, I’ll be reading a few selections from my anthologies. I’d rather do a group reading, featuring the authors etc., but World Fantasy forbids such events for some reason.
Hope to see you all there!
ROCKVILLE, MD, OCT. 25 — Fantasy Magazine, the critically-acclaimed online short fiction magazine published by Prime Books, will relaunch in March 2011, with a brand new look, a new approach, and a new editor: bestselling anthologist John Joseph Adams (Wastelands, The Living Dead).
Fantasy Magazine is currently edited by Sean Wallace and Cat Rambo. Wallace, who is also the publisher of Prime Books and Fantasy Magazine, will stay on as publisher but will be stepping down as co-editor. Rambo, who in addition to her work as an editor is also an accomplished author, will be stepping down in order to focus on her writing. John Joseph Adams will edit Fantasy Magazine while continuing to edit Lightspeed Magazine (also published by Prime Books), bringing both magazines under the same editorial umbrella.
Fantasy’s new publishing approach will bring it in line with its sister magazine, Lightspeed. Like Lightspeed, Fantasy will:
Fantasy Magazine launched in 2005 as a print magazine, before transitioning to its current online model in 2007. The magazine’s current inventory, selected by Rambo and Wallace, will appear in the magazine through February 2011; Adams will take editorial control of the magazine immediately, and his first selections will debut in the March 2011 issue when the new website launches.
About John Joseph Adams (Editor)
John Joseph Adams (www.johnjosephadams.com) is the bestselling editor of many anthologies, such as Wastelands, The Living Dead (a World Fantasy Award finalist), The Living Dead 2, The Way of the Wizard, By Blood We Live, Federations, and The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Barnes & Noble.com named him “the reigning king of the anthology world,” and his books have been named to numerous best of the year lists. Prior to taking on the role of editor at Lightspeed and Fantasy Magazine, John worked for nearly nine years in the editorial department of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. In addition to his editorial work, John is also the co-host of io9.com’s Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast.
About Prime Books
Prime Books (www.prime-books.com), edited and published by Hugo Award- and World Fantasy Award-winner Sean Wallace, is an independent publishing house specializing in a mix of anthologies, collections, novels, and magazines. Some of its established and new authors/editors include John Joseph Adams, KJ Bishop, Philip K. Dick, Theodora Goss, Rich Horton, Nick Mamatas, Sarah Monette, Holly Phillips, Tim Pratt, Ekaterina Sedia, Catherynne M. Valente, and Jeff VanderMeer.
Contacts
Sean Wallace, publisher: sean@fantasy-magazine.com
John Joseph Adams, editor: john@fantasy-magazine.com
My anthology, The Way of the Wizard, is forthcoming in November from Prime Books. Here’s the cover copy, and the table of contents is after the cut:
Power. We all want it, they’ve got it—witches, warlocks, sorcerers, necromancers, those who peer beneath the veil of mundane reality and put their hands on the levers that move the universe. They see the future in a sheet of glass, summon fantastic beasts, and transform lead into gold…or you into a frog. From Gandalf to Harry Potter to the Last Airbender, wizardry has never been more exciting and popular.
Now acclaimed editor John Joseph Adams (The Living Dead) brings you 32 of the most spellbinding tales ever written, by some of today’s most magical talents, including Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, Robert Silverberg, Kelly Link, and many more.
Enter a world where anything is possible, where imagination becomes reality. Experience the thrill of power, the way of the wizard. (more…)
I’ll be a guest lecturer at the 2011 Odyssey, The Fantasy Writing Workshop, which will be held June 6 – July 15. My lecture day is scheduled for July 13. This year’s writer-in-residence will be Gary Braunbeck, and other guest lecturers include Theodora Goss and Barry B. Longyear.
Here’s a little bit about the workshop, from my article “Basic Training for Writers“:
Odyssey is a well-respected six-week writing workshop, in which the entire learning process is overseen by one instructor, editor Jeanne Cavelos. “A single instructor guides you through the six weeks, gaining in-depth knowledge of your work, providing detailed assessments of your strengths and weaknesses, helping you target your weaknesses one by one, and charting your progress,” Cavelos said. “Some other workshops provide a series of instructors, which leaves you without any continuity of feedback to help you understand whether you are improving or not.” Odyssey allows students to work on both short fiction and novels, in the genre of science fiction, fantasy, or horror.
Workshop Director Cavelos is a former senior editor at Bantam Doubleday Dell, and Odyssey is the only six-week workshop that has an editor’s guidance throughout. Cavelos says that her experienced editorial perspective is key to the learning process and enables her to help writers find the writing process that will best work for them.
But going to Odyssey doesn’t mean you’ll miss out on being tutored by genre luminaries. Each week of the program, a different guest writer or editor spends a period of 24 hours with the students, providing additional instruction, and Odyssey also features a writer-in-residence who teaches and works with students for an entire week. Past instructors include: Harlan Ellison, Dan Simmons, Ben Bova, George R. R. Martin, and Terry Brooks, among many others. The 2010 writer-in-residence was Laura Anne Gilman.
Fifty-three percent of Odyssey graduates have gone on to be published professionally, according to Cavelos. This is the highest percentage of post-workshop success reported by any of these programs. “I believe the journey to become the best writer you can be is a lifelong one,” Cavelos said. “At the end of Odyssey, your journey will not be done. Yet I’m constantly told by graduates that they learned more at Odyssey than they learned in years of workshopping and creative writing classes. The workshop helps you advance in your journey at a much accelerated rate.”
Cavelos notes that one of the big differences between Odyssey and some of the other workshops is that Odyssey offers an advanced, comprehensive curriculum covering the elements of fiction writing in depth. “With two hours of lecture/discussion each day (in addition to two hours of workshopping), Odyssey students learn the tools and techniques that make powerful writing,” Cavelos says. “While feedback can reveal a writer’s weaknesses, that writer can’t improve unless he has the tools to strengthen those weak areas.”
Published novelists who are Odyssey alumni include New York Times best-selling author Carrie Vaughn (six books published by Warner/Grand Central, and one forthcoming from HarperTeen), Barbara Campbell (three-book deal with DAW), Lane Robins (sold two books to Del Rey and two to Ace), Elaine Isaak (two books sold to Harper), James Maxey (four books sold to Solaris Books), and David J. Schwartz (major book deal with Random House); in addition to this, Odyssey alumni have published over 650 stories in a variety of anthologies and magazines, such as Asimov’s and Realms of Fantasy.
Applications for early admission are due January 31, 2011. The final deadline for applying to the workshop is April 8, 2011.
Well, DO YOU? Because Bennett Cerf wants to know! Or he did want to know, oh, 50 years ago or so.
This looks totally silly, right? Some kind of scam to take advantage of new writers? Well, guess who Bennett Cerf was: only one of the founders of the LARGEST ENGLISH LANGUAGE BOOK PUBLISHER IN THE WORLD (Random House.)
Okay, so let’s see what writers were affiliated with this. ROD SERLING? ROD freaking SERLING?? (Of Twilight Zone fame.)
I wasn’t familiar with any of the other names, but several of them at least do seem to be successful writers of their era:
(Strangely, the first three of the authors I looked up all died in 1978. COINCIDENCE??)
Oh, but LOOKEE HERE. My scam radar was not off after all. It seems there was a considerable scandal over the Famous Writers School’s business practices. The expose—“Let Us Now Appraise Famous Writers”—written by Jessica Mitford*, appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in 1970, and because we live in the future, you can just click through and read it right now. Snippet from Wikipedia: “Several of the Guiding Faculty attempted to defend the school’s practices, with Faith Baldwin saying ‘Oh, that’s just one of those things about advertising…. Anyone with common sense would know that the fifteen of us are much too busy to read the manuscripts the students send in.'” Yes—how silly that anyone would assume that the writers on staff would READ the manuscripts the students send in.
Man, I don’t know about you, but I’m dying to get my hands on a copy of this aptitude test.
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*Mitford also wrote an expose on the funeral industry—which I haven’t read, but sounds fantastic—called The American Way of Death.
We’re looking to fill the following position at Lightspeed Magazine.
Advertising Manager and/or Advertising Representatives
Necessary skills: The ability to contact and facilitate the purchasing of advertising space by 3rd parties for the Lightspeed Magazine website.
Duties: Maintain the advertising network tools, add new ads, remove old ones, and respond to advertiser questions.
Benefits: Commission-based. Inquire further.
If interested, contact publisher Sean Wallace at sean@lightspeedmagazine.com.
Legendary author Harlan Ellison recently read this week’s Lightspeed story—“Arvies” by Adam-Troy Castro—and posted this rave review on his website’s forum:
HARLAN ELLISON
– Tuesday, August 17 2010 12:43:42ADAM-TROY CASTRO’s NEW STORY —-
Remarkable. And in the purest intensity of the word: powerful.You may quote me.
In any year in which “The Best” stories in this genre are selected, Adam’s “Arvies” would be a certainty for adulation.
I, in truth, read it three times, straight through.
This is a grand talent operating at top-point efficiency. Even to spend an evening with intelligent friends discusssing the underlying moralities and categorical imperatives of this deeply wrought story, is to spend an evening letting creativity lave your intellect.
I understand it will appear in LIGHTSPEED Magazine, of which I know not; but Adam-Troy should be in my wake here, somewhere, giving you the info where to get this special narrative.
Yr. Pal, Harlan
If you also know not of Lightspeed Magazine, the homepage is www.lightspeedmagazine.com, and you can find “Arvies” here.
Obviously, hearing that an author as influential and distinguished as Harlan Ellison loves a story you’ve published is an incredible honor and hugely flattering. But that the praise for this—shall we say…dangerous—story is coming from Harlan Ellison, editor of what is quite probably the most important anthology in the history of science fiction—Dangerous Visions—well, in that case, it goes quite a bit beyond that.
I’ll be at Readercon (July 8-11) on Friday and Saturday next week. Here’s what I’ll be doing as a program participant:
Friday 6:00 PM, Salon F: Panel
The Bonus DVD in Literature. John Joseph Adams, Jim Freund (M), Marty Halpern, Robert V. S. Redick, Sarah Smith.
Brandon Sanderson has posted “author commentary” on a chapter-by-chapter basis for all of his major fantasy novels. Steven Hall wrote “un-chapters” for every chapter of his published book _The Raw Shark Texts_ and has scattered them in the world and online. And Catherynne Valente recorded audio “author’s commentary” for several chapters of her online YA novel _The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making_. How does the presence of authoritative commentary change the reading dynamic? Does it affect the sense of closure and satisfaction that is conventionally experienced when we reach the end of a story? Will a proliferation of such bonus material create more
informed readers, or simply ones less willing to work to understand a story? And how does the idea of a “published work” change when different readers may have experienced less or more of it, depending on how much bonus content they have experienced?
Saturday 11:00 AM, ME/ CT: Panel
The New and Improved Future of Magazines (Part 2). John Joseph Adams, John Benson, Leah Bobet, Robert Killheffer (L), Sean Wallace.
After last year’s “The Future of Magazines” panels, participant K. Tempest Bradford wrote: “The magazines and anthologies that I love tend to have editors who have taken the time to examine themselves or their culture, to expend their knowledge of other people and ways of being, to open their minds. These magazines and anthologies contain far more stories I want to read by authors of many varied backgrounds. As I said, it’s not fully about print vs. online, it’s about better magazines and books.” This time, creators and proponents of both print and online magazines collaborate on determining ways that any genre magazine can create a brighter and better-read future for itself, using Bradford’s comment as a launching point.
Saturday 12:00 Noon, Vinyard: Kaffeeklatsch
Voting for the World Fantasy Awards closes June 30. Though the World Fantasy Award is a juried award, two finalists in each category are chosen by the popular vote of the attendees of the World Fantasy Convention. So if you attended the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose in 2009 (and/or perhaps if you are already registered this year for the 2010 convention in Columbus), you are eligible to vote. (And if you are eligible to vote, you likely received “progress reports” from the convention with a paper ballot and instructions.)
You can nominate up to 5 works in each of the following categories:
Life Achievement, Novel, Novella (10,000 – 40,000 words), Short Fiction (under 10,000 words), Anthology, Collection, Artist, Special Award: Professional, and Special Award: Non-Professional. See the World Fantasy Awards page for more information.
Paper ballots must be postmarked by June 30, 2010, or else you can email your ballot to awards administrator Rodger Turner at rturner [at] arctera [dot] com.
Here’s a list of works I edited that are eligible in the various categories.
Novella
John Langan: “The Wide, Carnivorous Sky” (By Blood We Live)
Rob Rogers: “The Adventure of the Pirates of Devil’s Cape” (The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)
Short Fiction
Sergei Lukyanenko: “Foxtrot at High Noon” (By Blood We Live)
Special Award: Professional
John Joseph Adams (for editing)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: publicity@lightspeedmagazine.com
ROCKVILLE, MD, JUNE 1 — Lightspeed (www.lightspeedmagazine.com), the new online science fiction magazine published by the award-winning independent press Prime Books, launches today with the publication of “I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno” by Vylar Kaftan.
Lightspeed is edited by John Joseph Adams (Fiction Editor), the bestselling editor of anthologies such as Wastelands and The Living Dead, and Andrea Kail (Nonfiction Editor), a writer, critic, and television producer who worked for thirteen years on Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
Lightspeed‘s focus is exclusively on science fiction. It features all types of sf, from near-future, sociological soft sf, to far-future, star-spanning hard sf, and anything and everything in between. No subject is considered off-limits, and Lightspeed writers are encouraged to take chances with their fiction and push the envelope.
Each month at Lightspeed, you will find a mix of original and reprint fiction, and featuring a variety of authors—from the bestsellers and award-winners you already know to the best new voices you haven’t heard of yet. When you read Lightspeed, it is our hope that you’ll see where science fiction comes from, where it is now, and where it’s going.
Lightspeed also features a variety of nonfiction features, fiction podcasts, and Q&As with our authors that go behind-the-scenes of their stories.
Lightspeed‘s regular publication schedule each month includes two pieces of original fiction and two fiction reprints, along with four nonfiction articles. Fiction posts on Tuesdays, nonfiction on Thursdays. Additionally, award-winning audiobook producer Stefan Rudnicki, will be producing the Lightspeed Magazine story podcast, which will feature audio adaptations of two Lightspeed stories every month.
Lightspeed‘s debut issue features four all-new, never-before-published stories: from newcomer Vylar Kaftan, an interstellar love story dealing with the perils of communication and time-dilation; from bestselling, award-winning author Jack McDevitt, a tale about Earth’s moon and the mysteries it might still possess; from David Barr Kirtley, an adventure of a young catman who must face the last of the dogmen and something else entirely unexpected; and from bestselling author Carrie Vaughn, a cautionary tale of the near future that shows some of the extremes we might be pushed to if we don’t start implementing now the seeds for a sustainable future.
Additional features include an article about relativity and the speed of light by astronomer/author Mike Brotherton; a list of the top ten reasons why genetically-engineered animals won’t make good pets by humorist Carol Pinchefsky; a profile of astronaut Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, by Genevieve Valentine; and a primer for sustainable living by ecologist Amanda Rose Levy.
As a special feature of the debut issue, in conjunction with the popular podcasts Escape Pod and Hugo Award nominee Starship Sofa, Lightspeed will present two bonus podcasts: “I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno” by Vylar Kaftan will appear on Escape Pod on June 1 and “Cats in Victory” by David Barr Kirtley will appear on Starship Sofa on June 15. This is in addition to the Lightspeed Magazine story podcast’s offerings, which will present “The Cassandra Project” by Jack McDevitt and “Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn.
Future issues of Lightspeed will include fiction by the likes of George R. R. Martin, Joe Haldeman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Carol Emshwiller, Catherynne M. Valene, Tobias S. Buckell, Tananarive Due, Yoon Ha Lee, Cat Rambo, and Adam-Troy Castro, as well as from newcomers such as Genevieve Valentine, Alice Sola Kim, David Tallerman, John R. Fultz, and Corey Joshua Mariani.
Lightspeed held a launch event at the science fiction convention Wiscon, in Madison, WI on Memorial Day weekend. Limited edition Lightspeed Magazine samplers in digest magazine format were made available for free to all members of the convention. This special hardcopy edition of Lightspeed features “I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno” by Vylar Kaftan, “Is There Anybody Out There That Wants to Go Fast” by Mike Brotherton, “Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn, and an Author Spotlight on Carrie Vaughn. The launch event included readings from Vylar Kaftan, Alice Sola Kim, Cat Rambo, and Genevieve Valentine.
About John Joseph Adams (Fiction Editor)
John Joseph Adams (www.johnjosephadams.com) is the bestselling editor of many anthologies, such as Wastelands, The Living Dead (a World Fantasy Award finalist), By Blood We Live, Federations, and The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Barnes & Noble.com named him “the reigning king of the anthology world,” and his books have been named to numerous best of the year lists. Prior to taking on the role of fiction editor of Lightspeed, John worked for nearly nine years in the editorial department of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. In addition to his editorial work, John is also the co-host of Tor.com’s Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast.
About Andrea Kail (Nonfiction Editor)
Andrea Kail (www.andreakail.com) is a graduate of the Dramatic Writing Program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and has spent the last two decades working from one end of New York’s television spectrum to the other: HBO, MTV, A&E, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, as well as thirteen years at NBC’s Emmy Award-winning Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Her fiction has appeared in Fantasy Magazine, and her novella, “The Sun God at Dawn, Rising from a Lotus Blossom,” was a first-place winner in the Writers of the Future contest and appeared in Writers of the Future Vol. XXIII. Since 2005, Andrea has also been writing lively film criticism for such venues as Paradox Magazine and CinemaSpy.
About Stefan Rudnicki (Audio Editor)
Stefan Rudnicki is an independent director, producer, narrator, and publisher of audiobooks. He has received more than a dozen Audie Awards from the Audio Publishers Association, a Ray Bradbury Award, a Bram Stoker Award, and a GRAMMY Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for The Children’s Shakespeare. Outside of the audiobook industry, he’s probably best known for the dozen books he’s written or edited, from actor’s resource anthologies to a best-selling adaptation of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. He is also president of Skyboat Road Company, Inc. (www.skyboatroad.com), the most respected independent audio production team on the West Coast.
About Prime Books
Prime Books (www.prime-books.com), edited and published by Hugo Award-nominee and World Fantasy Award-winner Sean Wallace, is an award-winning independent publishing house specializing in a mix of anthologies, collections, novels, and magazines. Some of its established and new authors/editors include John Joseph Adams, KJ Bishop, Philip K. Dick, Theodora Goss, Rich Horton, Nick Mamatas, Sarah Monette, Holly Phillips, Tim Pratt, Ekaterina Sedia, Catherynne M. Valente, and Jeff VanderMeer.
Contacts
Sean Wallace, publisher, sean@lightspeedmagazine.com
John Joseph Adams, fiction editor, john@lightspeedmagazine.com
Andrea Kail, non-fiction editor, andrea@lightspeedmagazine.com
Lightspeed‘s complete posting schedule for June 2010 follows:
June 1
Fiction: “I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno” by Vylar Kaftan
Author Spotlight: Vylar Kaftan
Podcast: “I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno” by Vylar Kaftan (on Escape Pod)
Editorial by John Joseph Adams
June 3
Nonfiction: “Is There Anybody Out There That Wants to Go Fast” by Mike Brotherton
June 8
Fiction: “The Cassandra Project” by Jack McDevitt
Author Spotlight: Jack McDevitt
Podcast: “The Cassandra Project” by Jack McDevitt, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki
June 10
Nonfiction: “The High Untresspassed Sanctity of Space: Seven True Stories about Eugene Cernan” by Genevieve Valentine
June 15
Fiction: “Cats in Victory” by David Barr Kirtley
Author Spotlight: David Barr Kirtley
Podcast: “Cats in Victory” by David Barr Kirtley (on Starship Sofa)
June 17
Nonfiction: “Top Ten Reasons Why Uplifted Animals Don’t Make Good Pets” by Carol Pinchefsky
June 22
Fiction: “Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn
Author Spotlight: Carrie Vaughn
Podcast: “Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki
June 24
Nonfiction: “Every Step We Take” by Amanda Rose Levy